■ New Zealand
Police make huge drug bust
Police said yesterday they had made one of the largest drug seizures in recent years after intercepting a shipment of methamphetamine from China with a street value of NZ$8 million (US$5.5 million). Police said a 23-year-old man Chinese man and a 25-year-old Chinese woman had appeared in a Wellington court yesterday on various drugs charges, and further arrests could follow. The estimated 8kg of the drug hidden in water filter equipment from China which was seized at Auckland Airport, said Detective Senior Sergeant Darrin Thomson of the Wellington police."The drugs were worth in excess of NZ$8 million dollars on the street," he said.
■ China
Bird quarantine lifted
The Ministry of Agriculture has lifted the quarantine on the last of 33 areas that had reported outbreaks of bird flu, the official Xinhua news agency said. The ministry approved the ending of quarantine on Friday in an area of Guizhou Province after no new cases were reported for 21 days. A woman died of bird flu this week, the seventh person to die from the disease in China since last November. But no outbreaks of bird flu in poultry have been confirmed in the area of Sichuan Province where she lived.
■ Mongolia
Cabinet nominees approved
Mongolia took the last step toward rebuilding its collapsed government yesterday, as parliament approved all but one of 17 ministers nominated by the prime minister for his new Cabinet. The legislature made its final decision after debating the nominations from Friday afternoon into early yesterday, with the process broadcast live on television. Parliament on Wednesday approved Mieagombo Enkhbold, chairman of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), as the new prime minister. The 16 approved ministers include nine from the MPRP and three from the Democratic Party, including the deputy prime minister. Three other small parties have a total of four ministers between them.
■ Thailand
Watchdog site shut down
A popular anti-corruption Web site has been ordered closed without explanation by the state-owned Communication Authority of Thailand (CAT), media reports yesterday. The Web site's founders, including several prominent public figures, received a letter from CAT on Friday, ordering the www.corruptionwatch.net site closed by Wednesday, said the Nation newspaper. "We think it's very strange because no reasons for closing of the site were mentioned," said Jaruvan Maintaka, the kingdom's auditor-general, who has been blocked from doing her job for the last two years because of alleged political opposition to her active pursuit of corruption. "I think somebody is unhappy that many people have been visiting our Web site, which presents reliable information about corruption cases," she said.
■ Japan
Homeless man wins address
The district court in Osaka on Friday ordered municipal officials to allow a homeless man to register a public park as his residence, a ruling that will grant him access to welfare benefits, the Mainichi Shimbun reported yesterday. The court ruled that Yuji Yamauchi, 55, can list Ogimachi Park, where he has lived in a tent since around 1998, as his official address. The ruling was a victory for Yamauchi and some 6,600 other homeless in Osaka.
■ United Kingdom
Woman's fingers sewn back
A British factory worker who lost six fingers in an accident as she cleaned machinery at a biscuit plant had all of them successfully sewn back on, it was reported Friday. Anne Kellow, 62 believed she had lost the use of her hands after the fingers were severed two weeks ago. But surgeons in Plymouth, southwest Britain, managed to reattach them in a 17-hour procedure, known as replantation. While Kellow described the medical team as "fantastic," consultant Shola Adeniran said: "The operation was the ultimate test of a surgeon."
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